Start At The Start
by Cap'n Pirate Monkey
Summary: Story begins after 'Fish Tank' and wanders off from there. Norman Jayden and Madison Paige attempt to solve the Origami Killer case, and clear Ethan's name. Naturally, it all goes pear-shaped.
1. Chapter 1

It had occurred to Jayden, somewhere between having his windpipe crushed on Paco's desk and hitting the fish tank with such force that he'd be picking glass out of his back for weeks to come, that he had become quite accustomed to having the shit kicked out of him.

It had also occurred to him that it was probably not a good thing.

Somewhere in the dim haze of his peripheral vision, a fish gasped miserably, drowning in air. It glistened among the broken glass like a brightly-coloured gem. One wavering hand reached out to touch it. His shoulder complained miserably at this sudden and unwelcome burst of motion. _Move, Norman. Christ, you've been hurt worse than this. Just. Fucking. Move. Arms first._

He swung both arms out so they were in front of him, his palms flat against the broken glass and fishtank paraphernalia, slimy and cold and wet. _Okay, good. Legs now_. He drew his legs slowly in, ending up somewhere between the prayer position and a crouch, his ass sticking up in the air. The coherent part of his mind realised that he must look pretty fucking ridiculous right about now.

_Palms flat. Push up. It's not hard_. Except that push-ups had never been Jayden's forte. Even less so when his ribs felt like they had been bent outwards. His tie hung limply from his neck like a useless limb. _Push up._

The undignified grunt that accompanied the motion only served to strengthen Jayden's sense of his own ridiculousness.

_Okay_, he thought, and swallowed down the rising nausea. He was reasonably sure something was broken, but in the hazy, semi-conscious jumble of thoughts and pain and feelings, he wasn't quite sure what. That would be a job for later, when he could map the topography of his bruised and lacerated body in the relative comfort of his hotel room. Assuming he ever got back to his hotel room.

_Feet, meet floor_. The transfer was less painful than he had anticipated. All things considered, he felt relatively okay. Like he'd only been hit by three cars instead of ten. That was okay. He could work with that.

From his new vantage point, Jayden could see the utter chaos left in the wake of the skirmish, the smashed glass and overturned tables. It was, he thought, a distinct improvement. There had been something about the zebra print and gaudy novelty furniture and the giant ocean-in-a-box that had been deeply unsettling. Like the line between reality and weird, manchild fantasy had been irretrievably blurred. Like

_being lost in Ari_

a particularly vivid drug trip. Not that Jayden would know about that sort of thing. Not officially.

As he gathered his scattered possessions (lucky the ARI was waterproof; good old FBI techs thought of everything) he toyed with the idea of calling Blake. Toyed with it, and discarded it within seconds. Bad idea. Blake was too caught up in catching Ethan Mars, and asserting his oh-so-obvious guilt to everyone in earshot. There was literally no way on Earth that Blake would take time out of his gloating schedule to help Jayden out. Particularly since the case was, in Blake's eyes, closed, and what the fuck did Mr 'College-Education-And-Fancy-Sunglasses' think he was doing? No, there was no good that could come of it, and he'd had his ass kicked enough times today.

He examined himself briefly. He was not exactly inconspicuous, soaking wet, dusted with bits of fishtank and glass. A horizontal bloom of bright red had soaked through the lower half of his shirt. With a little effort, he found he could walk with only the most minimal stoop, and anyway, it was pretty dark out there in the club. With any luck, they'd all be coked up to the eyeballs and completely fail to notice him.

Then the door opened.

_Fuck. Not again._

It took him a second to react. He fumbled at his holster for the gun, held it in shaking hands, loosely trained on the figure who stepped into the hallway. He looked utterly unprofessional, and unconvincing, and there was a good chance any would-be assailant would die laughing at the sight of him.

The figure did not laugh. Instead, it emitted a decidedly un-murderous yelp.

"Shit, sorry." He lowered the gun. The lady standing before him, looking for all the world like Bambi in the headlights of an oncoming truck, was about as far from his assailant as it was possible to be. Short skirt, red shirt, unbuttoned almost to the navel. She must have been cold. Relief burned in his gut like a half bottle of vodka. "I thought you were someone else."

Her eyes swept the room, wide and startled. "What happened in here? What happened to Paco? Oh god, is he dead?"

Was there a diplomatic way to say _'he's had his motherfucking brains blown out, I think 'dead' is an understatement'_? Jayden wasn't sure.

"That would be a fair statement, yes." _Not bad. B+._ The lady had noticed his ragged state, was staring at the bloodstain and the bruises with curiosity. Jayden curled a protective arm around his middle and hoped she wouldn't press the matter."Look, ma'am, do yourself a favour. Go home and forget about this. Or...go back downstairs and get wasted and _then_ forget about this. Whichever you prefer."

"You're hurt," she said pointedly.

"It looks worse than it is." Her raised eyebrow confirmed it was every bit as lame as it sounded. Christ, he must have looked like hell. "Believe me. Nothing a few Excedrin and a good night's sleep won't fix. I don't mean to intrude, ma'am, but what exactly are you doing here?"

She smiled. It was a guilty smile, shot through with trepidation, and although she looked vulnerable as hell, all exposed flesh and slender limbs, he was suddenly very glad of his gun.

"I'm here for the same reason you are," she said, settling herself on the edge of Paco's desk. "My name is Madison Paige. I came here for information. Judging by the state of you, I think you may have found what I was looking for."

_You were looking for a katana-wielding maniac the size of a tank? Holy shit, lady._ The puzzle pieces were beginning to fit now; anomalous DNA profiles, bright spots in a room filled with the predictable and obvious. The discarded lamp. The duct tape. Jayden slid the gun back into its holster.

"You," he said, regarding her blankly, "are a journalist."

If she was surprised, she didn't show it. "Yes," she agreed, resting her hands on her knees. "I am. And you look like you_ really_ need to sit down. So please, before my mother hen complex gets any worse." Madison gestured towards the sofa. "Sit."

It was all the invitation he needed. He practically collapsed backwards, swallowed up by a sofa that seemed, to his aching body, to have the consistency of marshmallows. His bruised limbs seemed to sigh in relief. "Hell of a place to come looking for a story," he said, and wondered how harshly she'd judge him if he fell asleep right here, ensconced in cushions that smelled – not unpleasantly - of cigarette smoke and expensive perfume. "You could've ended up hurt."

"But I didn't." _Well, shit, Norman. Can't argue with that logic_. "Which is more than I can say for you. And anyway, I didn't come here looking for a story. I certainly didn't come here looking for a half-dead FBI agent. What can I call you?"

A low, insistent throb had settled in the space behind his eyes. The woman was slipping in and out of focus, a mirage cast in the fishtank's azure glow. "Jayden. I mean Agent Jayden. I mean Norman. Do I look that bad?"

"You look awful. Sorry, that sounded rude."

He raised a dismissive hand, dropped it back when he realised it was trembling. "It's okay. I probably do."

"Do you mind if I ask what happened?"

He was dimly aware that the sofa was now patterned with his own bloody handprints, a delicate constellation of dark red. "No offence, Ms Paige, but you'll understand if I'm reluctant to share with a journalist. It's an unwritten rule of my profession."

"We're lower than cockroaches. I get it." She smiled at that. It seemed genuine. "I promise you, Agent Jayden, nothing you say to me will end up in print. You can have me killed if it does. Deal?"

_How much harm can it do? She's got you figured out already._ "I'm holding you to that, Ms Paige. All right. You say you already know why I'm here, so that saves a little time. I found Paco dead in that chair. Gunshot wound to the head. I'd been in here maybe ten seconds when I met the guy who killed him. And when I say 'met', I mean he tried to skewer me with a katana."

Madison flinched visibly. "Is that how..." she gestured across her own abdomen, a half-hearted slicing motion. "Oh god. You can't possibly be okay."

"Just a flesh wound. It's fine."

"I hate to tell you this, _Agent_, but 'flesh wounds' don't bleed like you're bleeding. You need a doctor."

"What I need," Jayden said, pulling himself back into a seated position (bad idea; the pain in his ribs flared in intensity, sending slivers of pain dancing up his spinal column and into the base of his skull) "is for people to stop telling me what I need. Your turn, Ms Paige. What did you want from Paco?"

His vision was beginning to swim at the edges. He wasn't sure if it was the blood loss, or the fatigue, or something else. Shit. He'd been hoping to stave off the withdrawal pains, ride them out until he was safely behind closed doors. He folded his hands in his lap, fidgeting uneasily, trying to ignore the tremors.

"...found a business card for this place," Madison was saying. She seemed to be looking past him, her gaze distant. "It had his name on it. So I came looking for him. I wanted to know who was using the Marble Street apartment, and why."

"Did you get anything?"

The ghost of a smirk flitted across her lips for a moment. "What's it worth to you, Agent Jayden? If I tell you what I know, I get to ask you a question in return. Fair deal?"

_Oh no. No, we're not doing this._ Any lingering traces of vulnerability had long fled. Those dark Bambi eyes seemed predatory now. Threatening, in a way they had no right to be. He knotted his fingers, scratched absently at his palms. _She's probably got a gun in her purse, and you can barely walk, let alone run. Good work, Norman, you're at the mercy of a crazy lady – wait, no, a crazy journalist._

_Wait. Wait a minute._

_She didn't specify that the answer had to be truthful._

"Okay," he said, after a time. "Okay, I'll play."


	2. Chapter 2

The question that followed had not been what Jayden was expecting.

"Why did you let him go?"

Madison had leant forward and was staring at him intently, as if the answer might be hiding just behind the downward curve of his mouth. Jayden rummaged through his mental filing cabinet, searching for names and faces, the smallest clue as to what the hell she was talking about. Let _who_ go? She didn't seem angry about it, which was a small mercy. Limited experience had taught him that pissing off strange women in nightclubs was not a good idea.

It might have been the fatigue, or the withdrawal, or plain old brain fog (wasn't ARI just the gift that kept on giving?) but Jayden had drawn a blank.

"I'm sorry, what?"

"Ethan Mars." Madison resettled herself on the desk. She tugged anxiously at the hem of her skirt. "You had him in custody. He told me you let him go. Your police buddies seemed pretty certain they had their Origami Killer. Why didn't you?"

For a long moment, Jayden said nothing.

_Who are you really, Ms Paige? _he thought. The temptation to delve into ARI, pull up her files and dive in was overwhelming. _Because it's pretty fucking apparent that you're not just some lost little lamb of a journalist who just accidentally happened upon a murder case. What are you hoping to hear? _

"He's not the killer," Jayden said. It was safer to stick with the obvious. "There's no clear motive, for one thing. There's very little about him that makes any kind of sense, but...that doesn't make him a murderer. Lieutenant Blake thinks he's guilty as hell, but Lieutenant Blake is a pig-ignorant neanderthal who couldn't solve a crossword puzzle, let alone a murder case." The world was looking very vague now, bleeding out at the edges like a watercolour, and he placed his hands flat on the sofa to steady himself. _Pull it together, Norman. Keep talking. _"You can print that last part. The guy's an asshole."

She didn't laugh. She didn't even smirk. "Agent Jayden," she said, "your nose is bleeding."

_Shit._

_Shit, not here._

_Not in front of her._

He gave a nonchalant shrug and hoped it looked convincing. "He got me in the head a few times. Probably just a delayed reaction. Nothing to panic about."

"Nothing to panic about?" She was already on her feet, moving in impossibly long strides, clearing the distance between them with alarming speed. "You could be concussed. You could have a brain injury..." She reached out, catching his protesting hands in her own. Her skin was hot and dry and not at all unpleasant. "Your hands are shaking. Are you cold? God, your skin is freezing."

Jayden yanked his hands out of her grasp. It was tempting to tell her to mind her own damn business, that he'd answered her question and could she please stop _poking his fucking face,_ but without warning the world had tumbled, fallen sideways, and everything was collapsing in on itself. Everything was black, and everything was pain, shooting through his skull and gut and radiating endlessly outwards, and all that was left was a core of bright blue, pulsing like a migraine with the erratic beat of his heart. _Help¸ _he thought, clawing at the sofa cushions with spasming hands, _I think I'm imploding._

Somewhere far away, someone was calling his name.

_Water. I just need a little water. Wash my face. Then it'll be okay. _

Gasping, he turned his head towards the light.

_Floor. Water on the floor. _

He felt the impact moments after he hit the ground, rolling through him like an aftershock. No water, just damp carpet and sharp pebbles of glass. Shadows flitted in the corners, swelled and coalesced and took a human form. There was someone else there, out in the dark, a black finger-smudge of motion.

_That woman. That…Paige, journalist, Madison whatever she is. She's still here._

He opened his mouth. Formed the syllables carefully. _Water. _

"Wuhh," Jayden said, and licked his dry lips. He could taste blood, the copper tang of it sharp on his tongue, and hoped it was coming from his nose.

"Agent Jayden, can you hear me?" A voice, disembodied, somewhere close by. Madison.

"Ngh."

"I'm going to lift you up. Okay? You're lying in broken glass and…and god knows what else. Do you think you can stand?"

_I can't even see, and you're asking me to stand? Can't you just get me some fucking water?_ "Mnngh."

"Okay, I'm assuming that's a yes." A delicious warmth suddenly bloomed at his right hand side, enveloped him like a fever. A shudder of pleasure ran the length of his spine. _Christ,_ he thought, _this is beautiful, just let me stay here forever._ Then the warmth was pulling at him, lifting him off the ground and he opened his mouth to protest but all that emerged was a dry little squeak.

"Come on," the voice said, a little breathlessly. "You have to help me here. You're heavier than you look. Move your feet."

_Feet. We've danced this dance before, Norman. About twenty minutes ago, in fact. Second time should be a breeze. Assuming there is actually a floor._

His feet hit solid ground. By some miracle, they stayed there.

"That's good. The chair is behind you, Agent Jayden. We're going to sit down slowly. You're doing well."

_And you're a patronising harpy. A warm patronising harpy. Who won't get me water. _

He felt himself falling slowly backwards.

_Oh, there goes the room again. Whoops._

He was wrong about that too. The backwards motion ended with cushions, and stability, and slowly the room began to take form again. There was the broken fishtank, glistening and wet. There was the katana, skewered in the punchbag, a silver streak of lightning in the gloom. There was Paco, dough-faced and very, very dead.

And there was Madison Paige, ashen and terrified, clutching his shoulder tightly with one hand. He realised he was hyperventilating, and that his hands were covered with blood. Jayden folded himself in half, resting his head on his knees, and slowly sucked in a lungful of air.

He felt the gentle pressure of Madison's hand, tentative against his back. "Are you okay? Oh god, what a stupid question, of course you're not okay…"

"M'okay." His tongue seemed too big for his mouth, clumsy and half-numb. "Water. Please."

She got up. Jayden heard her rummaging in Paco's drinks cabinet. "No water. There's, uh, there's soda. Will that do?"

_I can't wash my face in soda, why the fuck would I want soda?_ "Yeah. Yeah that's fine. Thank you."

By the time he'd worked himself into a sitting position, Madison was already on her way back, clutching a glass half filled with some unidentifiable cloudy liquid. "Here," she said. There was a long moment in which neither seemed able to negotiate the transfer between her hands and his, still trembling wildly, and so they both held it as he drank. It tasted foul, mixed with his own blood and snot, but Jayden quickly discovered he did not really care.

When he had drained the glass, she gently extricated it from his grip and placed it on the floor. Jayden drew his hands into his lap and stared at them, trying hard to focus. The rims of his nails were black with blood.

Madison smiled without mirth, her lips drawn back in a rictus grin. "Nothing to panic about, huh? Pardon my French, _Agent_, but I call bullshit."

Alright, so he deserved that.

"It's nothing for _you_ to panic about. You don't even know me." His heart was still pounding at an ungodly speed, thumping against his ribs like a jackhammer. Oh, this was _not_ going away by itself. It was regrouping, gathering strength for a second attack. His hands snaked up to his inside pocket, fingers fumbling for that little glass vial. The little glass vial that was no longer there.

_Oh, fuck, shit, shitty fucking FUCK._

_The hotel._

_Get back to the hotel. It's all there. _

_How? _

_What do you mean, 'how'? Drive. Car's parked a block away._

_You can't even stand up straight. How the fuck do you expect to drive? You'll hit a tree. You'll kill pedestrians. You'll wreck the car and have to explain why to the rental company._

His internal argument was interrupted by Madison's ever-present hand on his shoulder, gently shaking him. "Agent Jayden?"

"What?"

It sounded a lot less snappy in his head. She withdrew sharply, as if he'd tried to bite her. Jayden exhaled slowly. "That wasn't...I didn't...look, Ms Paige, thanks for the help. I think I'm okay now. I just need to get back to my hotel, sleep it off."

"Do you really expect me to believe that?" She was like a dog with a bone, this woman, seemingly unable to just _let it go_. There was something in her folded arms, in the defiant jut of her chin that told him that arguing would be useless. "Agent Jayden, how exactly do you intend to get back to your hotel? You're in no state to drive, and I can't exactly see you walking more than a few blocks."

_Told you._

_Oh, fuck off._

"Why are you doing this?"

He had expected some sort of indignant response, or perhaps anger at his total lack of trust. He had braced himself for it. It didn't come.

What he got was a smile.

"You did a good thing, letting Ethan go." Madison stood up. Up close, Jayden noticed the faint grey-blue bruises that patterned her thighs, the fading red welts encircling her wrists. He filed the information away and resolved to look into it once his head stopped throbbing like a rotten tooth. "You helped him, so I'm helping you. Think of it as good karma."

The coherent part of his brain argued that vague mystical concepts were not an acceptable substitute for a proper answer. The other part – the part that hurt far more than what seemed reasonable – decided it did not care.

_Okay, time to be rational about this. She's helping Ethan Mars - at least, it seems like she is – which makes her the only other person in this piece-of-shit city who thinks he's innocent. If her intention was to steal from you, or incapacitate you, she just missed a golden opportunity. And she's nowhere near big enough to kick the shit out of you, which is a big fucking bonus._

_But she's a journalist._

_Yes, yes, she's a journalist. So what? Are you bound by law to tell her anything about this case? Thought not. Let her help. Let her get you back to the hotel. Find out what she knows on the way. And then you can get rid of her. Thanks very much, call if you need me, good night. Door closed. Tripto, shower, bed. Done._

"All right, Ms Paige," he said, and got to his feet with the bare minimum of stumbling. She looked vaguely impressed. It must have been the lighting. "Can you drive? Because I get the feeling I'll end up mowing down an old lady."

"At this time of night? Our old ladies aren't that hardcore, Agent Jayden. Can you walk?"

He smiled at that, a wan half-smile. "One foot in front of the other. How hard can it be?"

The answer, as it transpired, was 'very'.

Madison had lead him out the back exit, which had involved traversing a catwalk suspended from the ceiling, and the combination of intense vertigo, the Tripto shakes and two rounds of physical abuse had caused his knees to buckle as they neared the top.

"I'm normally a lot less incapable," he had said, apologetic, as she looped his arm around her neck and half-dragged him along.

The cold night air had hit him like a fist in the gut. His wet clothes clung to him like a half-shed skin. The car was closer than he remembered. Thank goodness for small mercies.

She offered to help him into the passenger seat, which he politely declined – he already felt utterly useless, and frankly, a little wrestling with a seatbelt was nothing compared to clambering frantically out of a half-crushed car. He huddled into the seat, hoping to leach a little warmth.

As she climbed in, pulling her skirt down to cover her thighs, Madison shot him a pitying look. _Probably unintentional_, he thought – he knew he looked pathetic, half-drowned and shivering, spattered erratically with blood. And he was supposed to be the Fed. He rested his head against the window and watched the city pass by, a brightly-lit headache cast in neon and smeared with rain.

She didn't need directions. Of course she didn't; it was her city, she knew these streets. He was just a tourist in comparison. A tourist that got beaten up a lot. Still, he thought, as they drove in silence, he was reasonably sure that this was not the way to the hotel.

"Ms Paige," he said, "I don't mean to question your sense of direction, but I think you were supposed to turn right back there."

"I know. I'm just making a stop first. Five minutes. I promise."

"Uh...okay." Except it wasn't really okay, because his muscles were beginning to seize, and his mouth felt full of sand, and if he wasn't back at the hotel in the next fifteen minutes... "Five minutes. Right."

They were turning into what looked like a run-down motel, complete with buzzing neon sign. Crossroads Motel. Original. The usual accumulation of battered old vehicles and fast food debris formed a damp glut in the forecourt, and suddenly Jayden was very glad of the Bureau's choice of accommodation.

In the corner of his eye, something was flashing blue.

He turned. Behind them, gathering outside the motel reception, was a small army of squad cars, a collection of flickering blue lights and figures in dark clothing. At the head of it all was Blake, flinging his arms in that exaggerated, aggressive manner which indicated that he was giving orders, and that you'd better fucking obey.

And there was Ethan Mars, flanked by officers in bulletproof vests. Being half-frogmarched, half-dragged to a waiting squad car.

"Ms Paige," he said. "I think you have a problem."

Her reflection in the rearview mirror ran the gamut of emotions, from curiosity to shocked realisation, to fear and finally, as her eyes flickered across the passenger seat, something that might have been anger.

"Was he hiding here the whole time?"

She didn't answer. She strained her neck, tried to peer over the back seat, and Jayden could sense the panic, streaming from her like fever heat. When she turned back to him, there was a desperation in her eyes that made his stomach sink.

"You helped him before," she said. "Can't you do something? Call this off? Talk to Lieutenant Blake? Oh shit. Did you know about this?"

He shook his head, and thought he could feel his brain rattling against the walls of his skull. "I had no idea. I got lucky the first time, Ms Paige," he said. "If they'd caught me... I'd be in a whole world of trouble. I'm not going to be that lucky a second time."

Her silence was unambiguous. _I don't care what happens to you, as long as they don't catch him._

"They're convinced he's guilty," Jayden reasoned. "_Blake_ is convinced. Believe me, I've already had this argument with him. Several times. And besides..." he indicated himself with a sweep of his hands. "If they see me in this state, they're not going to believe me no matter what I tell them."

"There's got to be a way. He can't get caught. Oh shit, I should have been here." She seemed to be oscillating wildly between rage and despair "You have to distract them. Buy him some time. You're bleeding, they'll notice that, right? He can still get away..."

"Ms Paige..."

A white light swept across the forecourt. The clipped staccato rhythm of a helicopter sounded overhead.

"I've got to speak to them," she said. She fought briefly with her seatbelt, pushed open the car door with her foot. "I've got to stop this."

_Christ, are you serious? _

"Ms Paige," he said, but she had grabbed her purse and was halfway out of the car, unsteady on the slick tarmac. He struggled out of his seat, stumbled onto the forecourt. The sudden burst of motion was like a dagger to the stomach. One hand shot out, clung on to the car door to steady himself. The other snaked around his middle, forcing the pain back. She was already heading towards the blue lights, moving faster than seemed possible in those stupid heels.

"Madison," he yelled.

She turned at the sound of his voice. Her fists were tight little bundles at her sides.

"You won't help him by getting yourself arrested," he said. _Or shot. Don't think Blake wouldn't do it. I know there's a gun in that purse and if I know it, so will he. _

He had expected her to argue, but she didn't. She watched them bundle Mars into the back of the car. Even from this distance, Blake's voice was clear and audible, barking orders like they were going out of style.

After a time, she came back to the car.

"Get in, Agent Jayden," she said, her voice a careful monotone. "I'll take you back now."

Jayden clambered back into the car and into the passenger seat, now damp from his wet clothes. Madison started up the car and backed out of the forecourt, heading away from the police sirens and flashing lights. They spent the time in uncomfortable silence, each looking periodically to the other, asking the same question: _where to from here? _

The streets passed in a blue-grey blur.

"I'm sorry," Jayden said as they approached the hotel."If you hadn't stayed to help me, he might have got away."

"No," Madison shook her head slowly, as if fully absorbing the apology. "It wasn't your fault. You didn't ask for my help. And it was selfish of me to ask you to get involved. You're right. They think he's guilty." She hugged her purse to her chest, staring at some indeterminate point in the distance, beyond the streaming windscreen. "It's over."

"It doesn't have to be."

She parked the car against the kerb, drawing to a gentle halt. For the first time, Jayden noticed just how tired she looked. "You know Ethan isn't the Origami Killer," she said. "You seem so certain. What do you know, Agent? What aren't you telling me?"

_Oh, there's an absolute fucking ton of things I'm not telling you. For example, I'm not telling you that I'm roughly five minutes away from another round of 'collapse and hallucinate'. Some things, you're just better off not knowing._

_And anyway. I'm not the only one with secrets._

"The only thing I know for certain is that I'm going to do everything in my power to make sure Shaun Mars makes it out of this alive." _Nice deflection, Norman. You could make a career out of this._ "And if you know anything..._anything at all_ that might help...then I need you to tell me."

Madison switched off the ignition and passed him the keys. This time, he did not attempt to hide the tremors.

"Well then," she said. "It looks like we've got some talking to do."


	3. Chapter 3

Getting past the reception desk in his current state was not quite the trial Jayden had envisioned. He had zipped up his jacket, hiding the worst of the damage, and, with Madison's careful direction, cleaned his bloody face as best he could with his balled-up tie.

He was sure he still looked fucking terrible, of course, but that could be blamed on a killer hangover, or, at a push, a really bad migraine.

The hotel was mercifully empty, and they had the elevator to themselves on the journey up. It was the kind of mirror-walled, plush-carpeted elevator that only existed in hotels labouring under the misapprehension that 'expensive' meant 'as tacky as possible'. Jayden rested his head against the cool mirror and watched tiredly as Madison admired their surroundings, wide-eyed and amused.

"Pretty fancy," she said, poking experimentally at the carpet with the toe of her shoe. "Maybe I should become a Fed."

"Maybe you should," he replied, deadpan. "Never-ending excitement, all the fist fights you can handle..." _experimental equipment that eats your grey matter like a kid with an ice-cream cone, horrendous withdrawal symptoms from the not-entirely-legal drug you take to ease the hallucinations, complete lack of respect from anyone holding a police badge..._ "Frankly, I'm only in it for the swish accommodation."

She smiled. She'd crossed her arms, her hands cupping her elbows, and leaned against the wall, letting it take her weight. "You feeling a little better now?"

_Well, apart from the quite-possibly-broken ribs, the unexpected horizontal extension of my navel and the fact that my brain feels like it's trying to burrow out of my skull, I'm just fucking dandy._

"Yeah. Yeah, I guess." There'd be no getting rid of her if he told her the truth. He could sense that her concern for him was genuine. And if she'd been looking after Mars too – well, there was a pretty serious Mother Theresa complex at play here, and Paige had clearly hit the 'gravely injured, incapacitated man' motherlode.

The thought made him feel inexplicably guilty. It hadn't been his fault that Ethan had gotten caught (and hell, Jayden was sure the guy had put up some kind of fight – they didn't call in choppers for nothing) and yet he felt the ghost of responsibility hanging over him. He had let him go, that first time. Mars had been ragged and incoherent and yet somehow calm, a horrible kind of calm that Jayden associated with men on the very brink of losing it completely. He had had no reason beyond simple instinct to trust Mars, and yet he had. Because he had felt, in his gut, that it was the right thing to do. _Shit, Norman, they'd have you committed along with him if they ever found that out._

The elevator doors slid open.

In the time it had taken for them to travel four floors, Jayden's legs had apparently rejected the crazy notion of 'walking' and steadfastly refused to move. The result was a strange half-shuffle, half-stumble which, he was reasonably sure, made him look like a very drunk man negotiating a minefield. Madison kept a respectful distance. _Of all the times to be hands-off, _he thought, _it had to be when my entire lower body has forgotten how to function. _

Eventually, and with a little cursing, he made it to his room.

"Take a seat," he said, fighting with the zipper on his jacket. "Or uh. Stay standing. Whatever you prefer. I need to clean up a little."

She shut the door behind them and sat on the edge of the bed, shucking off her shoes. "All right," she said, and sounded amused. "I think I'll sit. You sure you don't need any help? That bleeding looked pretty bad."

He was rummaging clumsily through the wardrobe, gathering an armful of clean clothes that probably did not match. He found an unopened vial of triptocaine in the inner pocket of a suit jacket and slipped it as casually as he could up his sleeve. He hoped his deteriorating motor skills would hold out long enough to get a hit. "If I need you, I'll call," he said, closing the wardrobe door with his elbow. He threw the ARI on the bed as he passed by. "I think there's a sandwich in the mini-fridge, if you're hungry. You can have it. I don't really feel much like eating."

"Thanks. I'll be okay." She was watching him intently now, mindful of the way he moved, the way he was holding himself. Jayden wondered if she was expecting him to pass out again. Christ, how bad did he look? "Keep the door a little open. I promise I won't peek. I just want to be able to hear you if...if something happens."

"Okay." He headed into the bathroom, flicked on the light. The sudden burst of bright white made his eyes water, and for a long moment he stood in the doorway, cringing away from the fluorescent bulbs, wiping at his eyes with the back of his hand. He dumped the clean clothes on the counter and headed into the shower, away from prying eyes. The triptocaine glowed a vivid, beautiful blue in the light.

He lifted the vial to his nose, inhaled deeply. The familiar burn of it was a blessed relief, an instant salve to his aching brain and cold bones. He collapsed against the shower wall and exhaled slowly, a long, shuddering breath.

"So uh, Agent Jayden." Her voice was distant enough for comfort. "The man who killed Paco. You think he could be the Origami Killer?"

_He can be Keyser fucking Soze if you want him to be if you just leave me alone for a minute. Just a minute._ A gentle warmth cocooned him, flowed through him like fresh blood. Every nerve in his body seemed to spark, one after the other, lighting up like an electrical grid. For a second, Jayden thought he could see them all, glowing triptocaine blue just beneath the skin.

"Agent Jayden? Are you okay?"

"Norman," he called back, sounding just a little too cheerful. He pushed himself back into a standing position and shrugged off his suit jacket. He slipped the vial into the inner pocket and let the jacket crumple to the floor. "My name is Norman."

"Okay Norman. How bad are your war wounds?"

He'd managed to unbutton most of his shirt, tugging tentatively at the blood-soaked fabric around his middle. The shirt and undershirt were stuck to the skin, plastered to the wound like an old bandage. Shit, this was going to hurt. "Um. I'm not really sure. Not good, I think." He yanked experimentally at the shirt, tried to pry at it with his fingers. No dice. He'd have to yank it away in one go, like a band-aid. A really big band-aid. Stuck over a katana wound. Wonderful. Not even tripto was going to make this easier.

"It doesn't look great," he confirmed, and grabbed a handful of shirt. The other hand gripped the bathroom counter, steadying himself. "Shit. Don't judge me too harshly if I scream like a little girl."

"Why? What are you..."

Jayden closed his eyes and pulled_._ The shirt came away with a wet sound, peeling back like a layer of skin, and a bright flare of pain exploded somewhere adjacent to his navel. He did not scream like a little girl. What emerged from his mouth was a gasp, sufficiently high-pitched so as to be mercifully silent. His fingers clamped against the counter, pincer-like. As the tripto circulated through him, the pain ebbed slowly away like an outward tide, receding until all that remained was a dull, slow ache.

"Agent Ja...Norman? Are you all right?"

He glanced at the mirror. Madison was standing in the doorway, tentative, as if he might lash out at her. His own reflection was a ghostly pale, thin phantom in the foreground, decorated with blood and sickly yellow bruises. The wound across his abdomen was an angry red slash, slick with blood and fringed with torn skin. It was ugly as hell, but he'd had worse.

Jayden unhooked his fingers from the counter and turned slowly to face her, still a little woozy. Her eyes widened momentarily in alarm.

"There's no point in me telling you to go to the hospital, is there?"

"No," Jayden said, a little regretfully. "There isn't."

She shook her head, visibly bemused by this display of polite stubbornness. "Well, I'm sure you've looked better. But I guess you're not going to drop dead any time soon. Let's get that cut cleaned up." He opened his mouth to protest but she was already elbow deep in the bathroom cabinet, grabbing anything that looked vaguely medicinal in nature. _Good thinking, Batman._ He hadn't even thought to look there. His plan had been…well, he hadn't really had a plan, beyond hoping blindly that he didn't end up with septicaemia or something equally nasty.

She had soaked a cotton pad in something that smelled like hospitals, and grazed knees. It seemed to originate from a brown glass bottle. In Jayden's experience, brown glass bottles did not usually contain pleasant substances.

"This is disinfectant. It's really going to sting," she said, and approached him, wielding the cotton pad like a weapon. Instinctively, he flinched away from her, and she shot him a look which suggested that if he did not let her attack him with the cotton pad, he would undoubtedly end up in a far worse position.

Reluctantly, he conceded to her.

His first thought, as she dabbed gently at the wound, was _hey, this isn't as painful as I thought it would be. God bless triptocaine._

Which was swiftly followed by _oh christ, I think it's burning through to my abdominal cavity. Ohgodohgodohgod._

"Ow," he said, through gritted teeth.

"Sorry." Madison dropped the bloody cotton pad in the sink and picked up a roll of gauze, dropping into a crouch. She began to wind the gauze loosely around his waist. "It's not as deep as I thought. You're pretty lucky."

"Lucky, huh?" Briefly, he assessed his bruise-spattered body in the mirror, and wondered how badly injured Ethan Mars must have been for her to think him _lucky_. "I've got to tell you Ms Paige, I'm not feeling particularly lucky right now."

"Is that so?" A quirk of the eyebrow. Her hands were fast and deft, winding the gauze around the shallow concavity of his abdomen. "And how _are_ you feeling right now?"

"Like that disinfectant is eating into my internal organs."

She laughed at that, and although she looked weary and dishevelled, he sensed a vibrancy in her that frightened him, just a little bit. How was it possible to still be that cheerful after everything that had happened? _It's called 'optimism', Norman, you should try it sometime. I hear it's a blast. _"Okay, tough guy. Let's get down to business. What led you to Paco? What were you hoping to find out?"

It crossed his mind that sneaking the question in the midst of his drug-and-disinfectant induced haze was playing dirty. Then he remembered that she didn't know about the drugs.

"I got a lead," he said, grudging. "A guy named Mad Jack. Well, that's not his real name. He cleaned up a stolen car for someone. According to Mad Jack, they gave Paco's name as the contact."

"Okay." Madison secured the gauze with a band-aid and got back to her feet. She ran her hands under the tap. The sound of running water struck Jayden as strangely calming. "And this stolen car. It's got some kind of connection to the Origami Killer?"

He nodded, grabbing the clean shirt from the bathroom counter. "Seems so."

They headed back into the main room. Feeling a little awkward, Jayden shrugged on his shirt and sat on the bed, fumbling with the buttons. Madison examined the room, seemingly enthralled by the unnecessarily large TV screen and self-consciously contemporary décor.

When she turned back to him, she looked almost apologetic.

"All roads lead to Paco," Madison said, without a trace of humour. She sat on the end of the bed, her hands folded in her lap. "You remember the apartment at Marble Street? Where you caught Ethan the first time?"

"Yeah, I remember. You were there? I didn't see you."

She turned away from him, examining the blank screen distractedly. "Yeah, I…I tried to help Ethan escape. I didn't do a particularly good job of it. You didn't see me because I ran and hid."

A pleasant sleepiness had begun to engulf Jayden, intermingled with the numb bliss of the drug that permeated every bone, every muscle. He stifled a yawn with the back of his hand. Suddenly, the bed seemed like the finest invention ever crafted by the hands of Man, far greater than penicillin, or the steam engine, or the internet.

"Clearly, you're the brains of the operation," he said. "What was so important about that apartment?"

"I wanted to know who owned it. Someone's setting these tests for him. Awful tests. I mean, you saw the state he was in. Covered in blood. Missing a finger." She gave a bitter little laugh. "Part of me thinks it's actually better he's behind bars. At least he won't wind up dead in an abandoned power plant."

_If you think he's better off in a locked room with Carter Blake, then you are certifiably batshit._

Jayden leaned back, propping himself up with his arms.

"Using my amazing deductive skills," he said "I'm guessing the guy who owned the apartment was the same guy who owned that stolen car."

Madison nodded. "More or less. And I'm guessing he's probably the same guy that beat you half to death. It took a little effort on my part…" she rubbed her wrists, her fingers lingering over the raw spots. _What did you have to do, Madison? What's the big secret?_ "But Paco talked. Gave me a name. John Sheppard. He rented the apartment on Marble Street from Paco. Paco swore he didn't know what he used it for."

"John Sheppard," Jayden repeated slowly. "Want to bet that's an assumed name?"

He scanned the bed. The ARI sat where he'd left it, propped up against a pillow. As if by some Pavlovian response, there was a sudden spasm of pain deep in his skull. _I know. I know I've pushed it today. But I have something this time. Come on. Just five minutes, I swear._

Jayden could not remember exactly when he had started to bargain with his own brain for just a little more time, but he knew it wasn't a good thing.

"Bear with me for a minute, Ms Paige," he said, and reached for the glasses. The glove was tangled in the arms and he worked carefully to free it. "This is going to look pretty strange to you, but trust me, it's pretty much the best thing ever. Well, sort of..." he slipped the glove on, fixed the sunglasses over his eyes. "This is ARI. It's kind of, uh, a brain-computer interface. It lets me access almost any piece of official information ever committed to paper in an instant. Unofficial stuff too. Databases within databases. It's like the internet, but better."

Around him, the room began to melt away, replaced by autumnal red as the forest clearing materialised, an unchanging snapshot of New England fall. The familiar carousel of files spread out before him, as neat as he'd left them, nebulous boxes of orange light. From the empty space above his head, he coaxed down a map; the geoprofiling zone glowed a pale blue, a vast thumbprint in the midst of Philadelphia.

He heard Madison's voice, back in the real world, like they were conversing long-distance on a bad phone line.

"What are you doing?"

Her tone suggested that she was slightly alarmed by this sudden display of bespectacled, one-gloved arm-flailing, and really, Jayden couldn't blame her for it; it always threw people off, witnessing ARI in use for the first time.

"You can't see it, but in front of me I've got a map of the city. I've drawn up a perimeter based on where the victims lived, and where their bodies were found. It's the killer's comfort zone, the area in which he principally operates. I'm adding a little location data to that map right now..." He placed a scattering of markers, pulled from memory – _Marble Street, Blue Lagoon, Mad Jack's. _He added the only usable piece of information he'd managed to glean out of Ethan. Carnaby Square, the place at the centre of his blackouts. Locations lit up like tiny lightbulbs, arranged in a haphazard pattern that had to mean _something_, anything at all, and yet seemed so horribly random that Jayden was sure they meant nothing.

Her voice again, tinny, far away.

"Are you all right? You're breathing pretty fast."

_Okay, slow it down, Norman. There's time. Calm down._

"I'm fine." The adrenaline buzzed in his fingertips as he worked; the geoprofiling zone shrank a little. _Not enough,_ he thought. _Needs more information. _His fingers pulled the name _John Sheppard_ out of the air. He filtered out the recent births, the ones too long ago to be relevant. He felt the ARI whittling the information, felt his optical nerves spark as a single, beautiful point of light emerged like a blossom in the middle of his map. He felt his heart leap.

"Well, would you look at that."

"What?"

"I've found him. I've actually found him."

He drew a circle around the name, watched it bloom into a wall of information. Date of birth, place of residence, date of death...

_Wait._

_Date of death?_

_1977? _

"He's dead," Jayden said. "1977."

"You're not making any sense."

He scanned the information, drank in vaccination records and medical reports. _Cause of death._ Jayden's fingers were quick and precise, drawing out news articles, a coroner's report. The kid had drowned. _Oh, Jesus. _His body had been dragged from a drainage pipe in 1977, on a building site off Carnaby Square. His twin brother...

_There was a brother._

Child protection papers. A court order. A lifetime's worth of history filled his vision. The brother had been taken into care shortly afterward John's death and placed with a foster family. The court order specified a neglectful father, whose inaction had allegedly led to the other Sheppard boy's death. _You've got one hell of a motive right there. Oh Jesus this is so fundamentally fucked up._ More pages. More information. The ache at the centre of his brain had begun to branch out, a spider's web of pain infiltrating the entire radius of his skull. A marker appeared on the map, glowing red like a beacon. An address. A name. Scott Shelby, formerly Scott Sheppard. Scott Shelby. Scottttttt Shelby. Scott Shelby...

"Norman!"

Madison's voice was no longer distant. She was, in fact, right next to him, shaking him, her fingernails sharp even through his sleeves. His vision was a blur of nonsense words and pictures and little orange lights, glowing like fireflies. Jayden batted ineffectually at his face, and found that he couldn't feel it.

"Scott Shelby," he managed to say. "No. Not that. Help."

By some miracle, she seemed to understand what he was asking. He felt warm hands against his temples, and then everything started to melt. Colours and lights and words blurring into one huge, unidentifiable mass, running down the window of his vision like rain.

_Oh god, I think my eyes have exploded._

And then it was gone.

He blinked slowly.

The hotel room was back, low lit and ugly. Madison was sitting next to him, holding him upright. He wanted to apologise profusely for scaring the shit out of her twice in one day, but the words seemed to stick somewhere between his brain and his mouth, and his open mouth flapped like a goldfish, wordless and inane.

When he did finally speak, it wasn't quite what he had intended to say.

"Is my face still there?"

She regarded him silently for a long moment.

"I'm sorry," he said, and extricated himself from her grip. "That didn't come out right."

"There's something wrong with your brain," she said. "I mean, I'm not a doctor. But that's the second time you've seized up like that. How hard did that guy hit you, back there?"

_How are you going to wriggle out of this one, Norman? Go on, I really want to see what you come up with. _

_Shut up._

"I might be a little concussed," he said. It wasn't a lie, strictly speaking. He'd taken a fair few blows to the head recently. It'd be a damn miracle if something hadn't come loose up there.

Madison sighed. She looked tense, like a wound spring, her shoulders rigid. "Those glasses. They hook up to your brain, right? That can't have been good for you, not in the state you're in." She rubbed at her face with her palms. "What were you thinking? I mean, clearly you're a smart man, but apparently you have no common sense. No offence."

"None taken." He flexed his fingers. Raising his hand, he poked experimentally at his face. Already, a little of the feeling had returned. _Thank fuck for triptocaine_, he thought. "Can you pass me the notepad? The one by the phone? And a pen, please?"

She passed them to him, and he grasped the pen as securely as he could. He would not be able to use the ARI for a little while, not until he'd slept anyway, and there was a creeping paranoia deep in his gut that would not let up. He hadn't experienced memory loss yet, but some of the others had. He'd heard stories. He scribbled Shelby's address down. His handwriting was scrawly and erratic, but legible.

Jayden reached over and put the notepad on the bedside table.

When he sat back down again, it was like every rigid structure in his body had turned to mush. He collapsed bonelessly onto the bed. For a moment, he stared stupidly up at the ceiling, wondering if this was it, if his brain had finally given up and disconnected. Then he remembered that he had not slept in over twenty four hours, and that he'd been thoroughly tenderised twice in that time, and that for the last two days he'd been living almost exclusively on triptocaine, vodka and Cheetos.

"Maybe you should get some sleep," Madison said, and he felt a crawling sensation in the back of his skull, as if she'd just rifled through his thoughts.

"Can't," Jayden said, and waved his hand limply in the direction he thought the notepad was in. "I have to check this address out."

Her face appeared, hovering above him, a wry smile playing at her lips. "You know, the world isn't going to explode if you take a nap. There's still time to find Shaun. But you're not going to be able to help him at all if you keep on like this. You look exhausted. And besides, it's nearly one am. What're you going to do, wake the guy up and demand to snoop around his apartment?"

She had a point.

_Wait, isn't persuasive psychology supposed to be my thing? Goddamit._

He rolled onto his front and crawled up the bed until his face found the pillow. In that moment, it was the finest thing he'd ever felt.

Jayden felt Madison squeeze his shoulder.

"Go to sleep, Agent."

The last thought he had, before he slipped into a black, empty sleep, was that he would probably regret taking her advice.


	4. Chapter 4

Jayden was jolted from a particularly deep sleep by the sound of something buzzing insistently, very loud, and very close.

His first instinct was to swat at the air above his head, but his limbs felt lead-heavy and uncooperative, and a dull ache somewhere in the lower left quadrant of his torso told him that sharp movements were probably not a wise idea.

Jayden's eyes flickered open. The cold light of morning flooded in, heading straight for the pain centre of his brain. He recoiled into the pillow, muttering a string of colourful curses.

_Either I've just had a really good night, or a really bad night._

Pressing his forearm to his eyes, he rolled slowly over onto the side that did not hurt (or at least, hurt somewhat less) One arm snaked out, fumbling on the nightstand for the source of the noise. _No, that's a notepad. Notepads don't buzz._ After a few seconds of blind groping, he finally hit upon it. A small square object.

Warily, he peered up into his open palm.

It was a cellphone. His cellphone. The word 'BLAKE' flashed on screen, emblazoned in angry-looking capital letters. _Shit._ He hadn't checked in last night. Blake would be losing his shit right about now, and Jayden was not in the right frame of mind to deal with one of his temper tantrums.

"Fuck off, Blake," he muttered, and let the cellphone fall to the floor. It buzzed indignantly into the carpet for a moment before falling mercifully silent. For a while, he lay with his arm hanging limply off the bed, dozing lightly. He was distantly aware of the occasional 'ping' from the elevator, of the clatter of silverware as maids patrolled the corridors outside. Cocooned in the cold light of morning, he closed his eyes to the world.

And opened them again.

_Morning._

Sharply, he sat up. He instantly regretted it. Every bone in his body ached. Every muscle. Every strand of hair. He looked down at himself. His clothes were crumpled. Blood had seeped through the bandage, staining his shirt pink.

_Ah. I remember now. It was a really bad night. A really, really bad night. There was a katana involved. That's how bad it was. Christ, Norman, why do you do this to yourself? Mom was right. You should've become an accountant._

He swung his legs over the side of the bed, gingerly touching his feet to the floor as if it might be made of lava. _It'd be just my fucking luck._ His head ached, the dull ache of a receding hangover. His mouth tasted like something had recently died in there. Jayden made his way to the bathroom and recoiled at the sight of himself in the mirror.

"Holy shit." He pulled experimentally at his red-rimmed eyes, ran a hand through the wild mess of his hair. He looked like death warmed up. Well, there was no time to be concerned about it. What was the time, anyway? Why had he allowed himself to sleep for so long?

A vague memory from the night before filtered through the sleep fog, through the lingering concussion. A woman. No wait. A _journalist. _Madison Paige. They had watched Ethan Mars being frogmarched to a waiting squad car. She had held him upright, confused and terrified, while ARI consumed another cluster of brain cells.

_All right._

_Then where is she now?_

"That's a very good question, Norman," he said, and sat back on the bed. "I'm glad you asked."

There was no sign of her anywhere. If it hadn't been for the bandage wrapped around his middle, he might have written her off as a particularly vivid hallucination. Well, shit. It wasn't the first time a woman had run out on him in the middle of the night.

Jayden leaned tentatively down, picking his cellphone up from the floor. Three missed calls from Blake. There was a voicemail message too. For the sake of his blood pressure, he decided against retrieving it. He replaced the cellphone on the nightstand and thanked his lucky stars that he'd had the presence of mind to choose 'silent mode' over the 'Mexican hat dance'.

Something occurred to him.

He snatched the phone back off the nightstand. Rotated it in his hands, examining it carefully, as if searching for DNA markers, or fingerprints. It hadn't been on the nightstand last night, when he'd crashed out. It had been in his jacket pocket. The jacket he'd left on the bathroom floor.

The jacket that was now draped over the back of a chair.

Slowly, he put the cellphone back.

_Either my clothes have become autonomous, or a journalist has been snooping._

Had he truly expected otherwise? That a complete stranger could act out of nothing but altruism and a pathological need to tend to the wounded? _Shit, Norman, you're a psychologist. A profiler. Don't tell me you didn't think she had an ulterior motive._

The truth was, he'd been too wrecked to care. It bothered him to admit it. He was a naturally suspicious person, but all it had taken to drop his guard was a little blood loss. He was losing it. _Well. The blood loss didn't help, but I think you're giving it far too much credit here. Think closer to home. Think little vials of blue powder._

He shook his head. Stared across the room. The wall clock read 8am.

Jayden dragged himself to his feet. Tripto first. Everything else could wait. When he felt slightly more animated, he'd check out Shelby's apartment. He'd shoehorn food in there somewhere. It didn't seem important right now.

He was halfway across the room when his cellphone began to buzz again.

"All right, all right." Jayden's legs complained miserably as he padded across the room, and he idly wondered if this was what it felt like to be elderly. He picked the phone up without looking at it. "Jesus Christ, Blake, can this wait? I don't have the time..."

"Norman? Is that you?"

It was not the voice he had expected to hear. For one, it was female, and she hadn't referred to him as 'asshole'.

"You're not Blake," he accused.

"No, I'm not. It's Madison. Listen, you're not going to believe what I've just found."

"How did you get my number?"

"I'll explain later. Listen, this is important. I'm at Scott Shelby's place. Norman, you were right. There's a trashcan here full of burnt evidence. I can just about make out an origami lizard like the one Ethan had. He's got a file full of information and news clippings about the murders..."

His brain was three steps behind, and the never-ending stream of excited babbling had ceased to resemble human speech. He rifled through his jacket pockets, searching for the vial of tripto. "Ms Paige. Madison. Slow down. What...what the hell are you doing at Shelby's place? Did you go alone? Are you _insane_?"

On the other end, he heard scrabbling sounds, as if she were going through a drawer. "It's not important right now. This Shelby guy looks guilty as hell. Oh jeez, there's a cop's uniform in here. You think that's how he got those kids to trust him?"

"It's plausible. Ms Paige, you've got to get out of there. What if he catches you? Christ, how did you even get in?"

"Quit with the questions." More scrabbling, the metallic scrape of coat-hangers being shifted. _This is fucking insane_, Jayden thought, staring at the vial in his hand. It occurred to him that perhaps none of this was actually real. Maybe he was collapsed on a bathroom floor somewhere, concussed and bleeding. It would be a fraction less ridiculous. "Oh. Oh wow. There's a room back here. Oh _Jesus._"

"What?"

A long pause. He could almost sense the adrenalin pouring from her. "Orchids. He's growing orchids back here. Rows and rows of them. God, Norman, you should see this. It's creepy as hell."

_Well,_ he thought, a little bitterly_ I would be seeing it if you hadn't skipped off without me. _

"There's a screen back here," she continued. "It's a pretty bad picture but I think it's Shaun Mars. He's trapped. There's a grate over his head and uh, it looks like he's in a pit of some kind. It's full of water. He's barely keeping afloat."

"Okay. Is there anything about the location that stands out? Anything that might help identify where it is?"

_Is this what it's come to, Norman? Letting journalists do your work for you while you sleep? Why don't you just hand your badge in and be done with it?_ He rolled the vial between his fingers, watching the powder shift like sand in an hourglass.

"No. But there's a laptop. Password protected..." There was a pause, a crackle of static. The delicate tapdance of fingers on keys. "You're the profiler, Agent. What would a psychopathic child-murderer have as a password?"

He pinched the bridge of his nose, warding off a headache. There was only so long he could entertain her Nancy Drew aspirations before she compromised the investigation. He'd have to go after her. "You're not seriously asking me that, are you?"

"I was kidding. But I bet this laptop can tell us where Shaun's being held. Why else would Shelby be hiding it back here? I've got to find the...shit. Oh shit."

"What?"

A voice, low and muffled. The sound of a sudden impact. Then nothing.

Jayden sat on the end of the bed, holding a vial of triptocaine in one hand and a cellphone in the other. He stared dumbly at the screen, at the 'call ended' message. He waited for the inevitable call back, the embarrassed laughter. 'Sorry, I cut the call by mistake'. That kind of thing.

He realised, perhaps thirty seconds later, that it wasn't going to happen.

Something very bad had just occurred, and here he was, staring blankly at a cellphone in the hope that it might absolve him of the awful, cold guilt that had begun to coil up in his gut.

_It's my fault she's even at Shelby's place._

The cellphone remained stubbornly silent.

_Now would be an excellent time to get up off your ass and do something._

"This," Jayden declared to nobody in particular, "is a fucking mess."

With neither grace nor decorum, he snorted an entire nasal cavity's worth of blue powder and got to his feet. The carpet felt like it had been replaced by cloud, and he was dimly aware that he was grinning like a freshly inebriated idiot. Outside, the world was a pale blue-grey, the colour of an old bruise. Rain-slicked surfaces shone as if polished. It was mesmerising, in an ugly sort of way.

His fingers felt like they were on fire. He fumbled with his suit jacket. He put on his shoes and realised, after a few steps that they were on the wrong feet. Sitting back down, he took a few deep breaths, a vain attempt to slow his racing heart. No good. It was a bad time to be high (was there ever a good time?) but he wasn't convinced of his ability to function otherwise.

_Calm down._

He rearranged his shoes. Got back to his feet. Fished his car keys from the debris in his pocket, and, after a moment's hesitation, replaced them with ARI.

_I hope I don't crash the car and kill myself._

_I hope my brain doesn't short out before I get there._

_I hope I'm not too late._

The first thing he noticed, as he approached Shelby's building, was that one of the apartments appeared to be on fire.

It would have been tempting to put it down to coincidence, but Jayden felt, with cold certainty, that it had to be Shelby's apartment. He pulled the car to a stop against the kerb, a block from the smoking building, and slipped his cellphone from the glovebox.

Even in the bewildering midst of a triptocaine high, he had been sharp enough to save Madison's number.

The phone rang. Jayden leaned out of his window, peering up at the building. Thick black smoke streamed from cracks in the window, spilling out into the cold air. No answer. It seemed to ring into empty space. He was about to launch the phone into the road in frustration when a small, frightened voice answered.

"Norman, is that you? Oh thank god. I'm trapped. He's locked me in here, and the apartment's on fire, and…shit, there's a propane tank in here. I'm so screwed. I am so completely screwed."

Given her situation, it seemed something of an understatement.

His fingers drummed against the dashboard, alive with nervous energy.

"Ms Paige. Calm down. I'm outside the apartment. Stay as low as you can. Don't breathe in too much smoke. Can you get to a window?"

"I don't know. There're flames everywhere. I can try to make a path. Knock over some furniture."

"Okay. Give it a try. I'll be right here."

He kept the phone by his ear, focusing on the wall of background noise in the hope that maybe he could figure out a way to help her. The relentless spit and crackle of flames. The grunt of exertion, followed by the resounding thump of something heavy hitting the floor. From the safety of his car, Jayden watched the window and silently, unblinkingly willed Madison to appear.

"Norman?"

"I'm still here. Did it work?"

"Yeah. I'm on the other side of the room. The front door's locked from the outside. I can't get out."

He drew up a mental map of his own apartment and hoped it would be close enough.

"Okay. Can you access any other rooms from where you are? A bathroom, maybe?"

Her voice was almost inaudible beneath the hiss of the fire. The windows were streaked with soot. They glowed a baleful red in the pale morning light. Her time was running out.

"The kitchen. The fire hasn't spread in here yet."

The damp air was making his bones ache. He wound the window back up, watched the glass turn white with condensation. "Okay, good. Close the door behind you."

"I'm not stupid."

"I know. Just do it."

A small crowd had amassed in the street below the smoking apartment, gawking open-mouthed like guppies. Their chatter was inaudible through the closed window. The part of Jayden that wasn't incurably by-the-book wanted to march on over and tell them all to fuck off back into their houses.

"Norman. The window's locked. I can't open it."

_Shit. That propane tank could blow any second. She's got to get out. _

He was about to speak when he heard her say, in a tone of quiet relief, "There's a refrigerator in here."

"Uh..." _Oh god, she's gone over the edge_. "Yeah. Kitchens are their natural habitat. Madison, do you think you can smash the window?"

"It's too high. I'll break my neck. It's okay, Norman, I've figured it out. I'm gonna hide in the fridge. It'll protect me from the explosion."

There was a moment of puzzled silence as he processed this information.

He sat bolt upright. The seatbelt pulled rigid against his ribs.

"You're going to...what?"

"It's okay." Her voice was muffled. There came the sound of containers and cartons splattering against the floor.

"Jesus Christ." Jayden rested his head against the window. The sudden cold sent a shudder dancing down his spine. "I don't think it's a great idea to bet your life on a shaky premise from an Indiana Jones movie."

"I'm sorry for all of this, Norman. I really am. If I get out of here, I'll make it up to you."

"Madison, you can't-"

Dead line.

This time, he did throw the cellphone. It bounced off the opposite window with a thunk and landed somewhere by his feet.

Jayden scrambled out of the car. The smoke had congealed into a thick black cloud, hanging like a blanket above the wondering crowd. He made a panicked dash for the building and skidded to an undignified halt as the windows burst outwards with an ungodly crash. A plume of bright orange flame rolled out into the sky with deceptive elegance. The crowd scattered, dispersing in different directions as shattered glass and smouldering debris rained down onto the street. To Jayden, whose blood still thrummed with triptocaine, it seemed to fall in slow motion, sparkling on the ground like ice.

Across the street, someone was screaming.

He picked his way through burnt papers and chunks of decimated furniture, past bug-eyed children and their shellshocked guardians, pointing up at the blackened apartment. Their chatter seemed muted, as if he were hearing them through a closed window.

"Goddamit Madison," he said, and wrapped his arms around himself. He stared up at the apartment windows. They looked like empty black eye sockets. The air stank of smoke and chemicals and charred paper. "What were you fucking _thinking_?"

In the distance, the strident wail of a fire siren echoed.

He was debating the pros and cons of attempting to break in via the front entrance when Madison emerged, bent double and looking decidedly well done. She had changed clothes at some point. Judging by the state of her, she probably wished she hadn't bothered.

She saw him as he approached, offered him a wan smile.

"Would it be irredeemably stupid of me to ask if you're okay?" he ventured.

Madison sat shakily on the apartment steps and dragged Jayden with her, grasping his wrist with one sooty hand. He felt the rapid rhythm of her pulse through her fingertips, the alien warmth of another person's skin.

"Indiana Jones," she said, "has never steered me wrong." And she laughed. Real, convulsive belly laughter, as if it was the funniest thing ever. He realised, a little numbly, that she was probably in shock, and that he had no idea what to do about it.

They sat like that for a time, while her laughter subsided into what sounded suspiciously like sobs (no tears; a surreptitious glance at her face revealed the same inappropriately gleeful grin) Her fingers were tight against his wrist. Feeling awkward, he looped a loose arm around her shoulders, and flinched instinctively as she leaned into him.

"Oh, sorry." She drew back sharply. The ghost of her fingers lingered against his wrist. "I forgot. Your stomach. How's it feeling?"

"Better. Thank you." There were dark circles under her eyes that might have been soot, or sleeplessness, or neither. "I guess I owe you an apology. For the fridge thing."

"Yeah." Her gaze dropped to her feet, studying the fire-eaten cuffs of her jeans. "Listen. I screwed this up. I ruined everything. And I'm sorry."

_Yeah, you really did. My only lead literally just went up in smoke because you had to stick your damn nose where it didn't belong. Sorry doesn't cut it. Sorry doesn't get us any closer to Shaun Mars, and sorry sure as hell won't keep him alive._

"It's okay," he said quietly. "You're not hurt. That's the main thing."

The sirens grew louder. A fine mist of grey smoke had filtered down, rendering the street in pale charcoal. Madison broke into a sudden coughing fit, spluttering into her cupped hands. A small group of people had gathered, staring uncomprehendingly at them as if they were some kind of exhibit. Norman scowled at them.

"Let's get out of here," Madison said, when she was done coughing. Her cheeks were flushed with effort, her voice sandpaper-rough. "I can't stand the smell. It's like being in a crematorium."

He decided it was better not to ask.

They half-walked, half-shambled back to the car, a couple of overtired zombies growing cold and wet in the worsening downpour. He noticed she was limping a little, but said nothing. _She could probably still kick my ass._ The aches and pains he had suppressed with panic and narcotics were beginning to return, one by one, a circuit board lighting up with each fresh wound and each old bruise.

The car door was open. Wide open, the keys dangling invitingly from the ignition. "Shit."

"Quick," Madison said. "Get in before anyone notices."

The doors slammed closed. The intermingled scent of generic pine air freshener and chemical smoke seemed alien, and vaguely nauseating. They sat in silence for a moment, watching as a steady stream of people emerged from the apartment block, sheltering from the rain beneath umbrellas and newspapers and coats held aloft.

"I haven't the faintest fucking idea how to find Shaun Mars," Jayden said, at last. "Not without ARI. And...I can't guarantee ARI won't kill me. Which is more depressing than you probably realise." He slumped forward. His forehead hit the steering wheel with a gentle thunk. _Is it a risk worth taking? My life for his? What if it doesn't kill me? What if I just end up paralysed or something? Or blind? Would that be so bad? I mean, shit, what if it does nothing at all? I can deal with the headaches, been dealing with them for years. _

_What if you stroke out before you find the answer, Norman? What happens then?_

_It's got to be worth a shot. It's my only hope. It's our only hope._

_Ah, so it's 'we' now, is it?_

_Fuck you. I've got to do it. There's no other way._

"...Norman?"

"Hm?" He hadn't realised Madison had been talking. Hadn't realised she'd been poking him in the arm. Was that a bad sign? He drew himself back up, surreptitiously checking himself in the mirror for blood. Nothing. Good. There'd be plenty of time for haemorrhaging later.

"Is it your head?"

"Mm. No. Thinking." _Thinking about how fucked up this situation is. About how a kid is going to die if I don't offer up my grey matter on a plate. _"About what to do next."

"I have an idea."

His stomach sank. Her expression was too earnest, her eyes Bambi-wide and bright with hope. There was only one way this was going to end.

A little reluctantly, he gestured for her to continue.

"Head to the station. We need to talk to Ethan."


End file.
